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Hugs and infographics

Ok, this may seem like a weird headline for this blog post. Let me explain two things that happened this week at Mozilla, and it will hopefully make sense to you.

Let’s start with the infographic. Mozilla published a new infographic called Mozilla in 2012 that gives an overview of our many achievements in 2012. When I see all the things that we did, all the goals achieved, all the progress that took place, I can only be proud of this fantastic organization that is Mozilla. Of course, not everything is perfect, but Mozilla’s efficiency, its achievements compared to its size are something that Mozillians can be extremely proud of. Mozilla is a very streamlined and focused organization, a lean and mean machine, especially when compared to competitors.

Now, let’s talk about the hugs. Over the past few days, I’ve been in the Paris office, then I have spent a few days in a seminar with a small group of peers, and then a day with colleagues from our Mountain View, California, office.

Let me describe interactions I had with a few people:

In Paris, I worked with Vincent, a bright and quirky high school dropout, who recently showed up at our offices, wanting to help. He had some time on his hands before starting a job in January, and wanted to use his time wisely.. He did just that in a variety of ways: by drafting a User Experience design proposal for a future product, refining graphical details in a slide deck for me, he even set up the Christmas tree in the Paris office. Vincent is a Mozilla contributor: he’s not making money, but he’s learning a lot and meeting people that share his passion for computers, smartphones and the Web.

Then there is Stormy, who heads Developer Engagement at Mozilla. I had dinner with her after our seminar. We shared funny and not-so funny stories and had a deep, courageous and authentic discussion about how we could work better together.

Finally, there was Pascal, a tall passionate German guy who exchanged with me reading suggestions that would make us grow and improve Mozilla as an organization.

I picked just three people, but I could have mentioned dozens of other colleagues I interacted with, including David A. and David B., two wonderfully nerdy and super smart people that serve Mozilla’s mission with a passion, Havi, Johnny, Lori and so on.

All of these people have shared something with me, some energy, some wisdom, some fun. All of them are a source of inspiration for me, and each of them is part of what makes Mozilla such a wonderful place that makes people grow. This is why I wanted to hug each and every one of them.

Where does the infographic fit in? It just proves that Mozilla is more than a social club, it’s a community of passionate people who work hard, care about each other and deliver fantastic products that make the Web a better place.

The beauty of all of this is that we are open. This makes Mozilla a very precious thing. You can be part of Mozilla if you want, it’s as simple as clicking on one of these two links to get started: